John Stone:
I sent your article to Dr. Carmel Wallace too.
Thanks for getting all the facts so well written up and put together.

Today the UK Daily Mail greeted us all with this headline about a proposed new vaccine:-
'JAB TO REVERSE ALZHEIMERS'. This immediately brought to my mind the business deal between UCL 'Pharma Star' Prof Pepys and GSK to develop UCL's research findings:-
http://uclb.com/ucl-professor-mark-pepys-hailed-as-an-academic-superstar-by-glaxosmithklineucl-professor-mark-pepys-hailed-as-an-academic-superstar-by-glaxosmithkline

"Professor Pepys started up the UCL-spin out Pentraxin Therapeutics, which is developing a treatment for a rare form of amyloidosis.
Pentraxin Therapeutics Ltd is a company spun out of UCL by UCL Business (UCLB). Formed in 2001, it holds all the intellectual property and proprietary knowledge emanating from the research of Professor Mark Pepys at UCL. Major IP within Pentraxin covers treatments for amyloidosis and amyloid-related diseases such as Alzheimer's disease."

But NO!!!

It seems that the UCL has been 'trumped' and will not be getting 'Jackpots of money' from their research into Alzheimers. (I could not resist repeating this nasty Deer comment, made at Johns Hopkins, concerning the Royal Free Hospital's, now part of UCL, original proposals to develop Wakefield's research discoveries. Deer implied that Dr Wakefield was expecting to PERSONALLY benefit financially from this, when in fact the patent was in the name of the Royal Free.)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1379749/Alzheimers-vaccine-reverse-damage-available-years.html#ixzz1KLcyiDIJ
'Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said the vaccine could be a significant breakthrough if further trials show it not only clears brain deposits but also prevents dementia.
Dr David Wilkinson, from Southampton University’s Memory Assessment and Research Centre, was involved in some of the earliest research into Alzheimer’s vaccines in the 1990s.
He said: ‘Hopefully the vaccine will make a big difference to Alzheimer’s treatment. If it can clear amyloid plaques from the brain and we can give it very early in the disease process, it may prevent some of the damage.’
A treatment capable of dramatically slowing the condition’s progress could also have huge financial benefits, with experts estimating that half of the £17billion spent on Alzheimer’s in Britain each year could be saved if patients developed the disease five years later than they do now.

The three drug firms behind the vaccine, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Elan Corporation, are expected to seek marketing approval when testing is completed towards the end of next year.'
TOO BAD Pepys and GSK!!

Jenny

I think perhaps the medical establishment had a two way bet with Deer and Goldacre. Goldacre's original 'Don't dumb me down' article in which he gave his view that the Lancet paper was bona fide received the 2005 ABSW award which had Evan Harris on the panel of judges.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/08/whats-behind-ben-goldacre-.html

So, if the GMC hadn't brought in their verdict supporting Deer the back-up would have Goldacre's flimsy bundle of epidemiological studies which he has continuously refused to answer questions about.

Now they have the problem that the GMC's findings were substantially flawed and John Walker-Smith's appeal is still pending.

John

John Stone and others, Keep up the pressure on Mr. Deer. He is an unstable personality and possibly delusional. Under pressure he would probably dig his own grave with his behavior and statements and alienate others to attack him as well.

With regard to Blairs it was also credibly rumoured (but never directly reported) that they had an autistic relative (perhaps one of Cherie's nephews or nieces). But they are not alone because the previous Prime Minister, Sir John Major, has an autistic grandson, and Samantha Cameron's step father Lord Astor (who is member of the present government) has an autistic daughter.

This is why the theory that "when it happens to them something will be done" is a fallacy: it already has and they do nothing, year after year.

AussieMum

The week after Deer's original "coup" which was endorsed was politically endorsed next day by Blair himself and Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ministers-temper-their-triumphalism-but-delight-spreads-at-whitehall-571091.html

the Sunday Times put out a story from sources close to the Blairs that Leo had had the vaccine. They had not confirmed this directly as a matter principle. Since the story didn't come from the Blairs themselves it was never critical whether it was true or not. It was just gossip which no one needs to credit.

I was told by someone in the investigatory business a few years ago that Leo may have received one of the single jabs on a holiday visit to France (presumably not all three in one go).

Jenny

That sounds fairly classic. We ought to bear in mind that Godlee and Marcovitch are previous chairs of COPE

http://www.publicationethics.org/about/history

and that the present chair of COPE is Liz Wager who sits on the BMJ ethics committee with Godlee and Jane Smith (another signatory of the "Wakefield fraud" editorial).

http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/about-bmj/advisory-panels/ethics-committee/committee-members

Wager is a pharmaceutical industry publications consultant who includes on her 'recent customer' list GlaxoSmithKline and BMJ Publications:

http://www.lizwager.com/

She is co-author with Godllee (and Tom Jefferson!) of a book 'How to survive peer review'

http://resources.bmj.com/bmj/pdfs/wager.pdf

Some years ago I had an extraordinary exchange with her when it turned out that she was advisor as "Liz Wagner" on a paper which recommended European Medical Writer Assoc guidelines on ghost writing co-authored by herself.

http://www.bmj.com/content/334/7586/208/reply

Do you have this general sense of being in free fall, down, down, down...

John

The following is extracted from my husband's complaint to the BMJ. He has never even received so much as an acknowledgement from the BMJ's complaint department. He is presently attempting to progress the complaint via COPE and the PCC. COPE has NO proper system for processing complaints, not even a postal address, and seems to be nothing more than a nice cosy cartel set up to PROTECT their 'members'. NON members, i.e members of the PUBLIC-NOT welcome!! Godlee and Marcovitch have both served on COPE's committee. If this is supposed to be a publishing ethics 'watchdog'. God help us!!

"The following are Fiona Godlee’s responses to the above questions and my comments (in blue italics:-)
(From Age of Autism 6-02-11: http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/02/fiona-godlee-of-bmj-responds-to-wakefield-questions.htm

FG ‘Thank you for your emails. The BMJ stands by the article by Brian Deer and the linked editorial published on 5 January.[1] [2] The article, which was subjected to peer review and editorial checking, was based on enquiries carried out over some seven years, involving, among other things, interviews with parents of children enrolled in Andrew Wakefield's research. Four such parents are quoted in the article.’

BA Brian Deer claims to have interviewed parents of four of the Lancet 12 children. At least two UK parents have subsequently complained that Mr Deer used assumed names and false reasons in order to trick them into allowing themselves to be interviewed by him. In view of the fact that the MMR vaccine was introduced to the UK in 1988, the Wakefield et al Lancet article was written in 1998, and Mr Deer’s Sunday Times article was published in 2004, a total of sixteen years, it would hardly be surprising if some parents’ recollection of events might have been less than ‘sharp’.(Mr Deer only provides one interview date during year 2003). Mr Deer also appears to have been determined beforehand to find ‘discrepancies’ in parental accounts, These interviews are NOT evidence of ‘fraud’ on the part of the Royal Free Research staff, particularly since Dr Wakefield was employed as a research scientist, NOT a clinician and was NOT directly involved with Royal Free Hospital patient care or treatments. Hearsay is NOT acceptable evidence in any UK court of law.

FG “As made clear in the article, the core data on which the findings were based were evidenced, except in the case of one child, by the transcript of a General Medical Council fitness to practise hearing which sat between July 2007 and May 2010.”

BA Dr Godlee is saying here that Mr Deer based his BMJ allegations of fraud against Dr Wakefield and his co authors on transcripts of the 3 year GMC case against Dr Wakefield and his co accused Profs Walker Smith and Murch. These transcripts will have become available AFTER the verdicts announced in July 2010. The GMC trial evidence included BOTH Royal Free Hospital and GP casenotes for each child

FG “In your questions, you suggest that Andrew Wakefield did not have access to GP records and therefore could not be responsible for discrepancies between those records and what was published in the Lancet in February 1998.The case we presented against Andrew Wakefield that the 1998 Lancet paper was intended to mislead is not critically reliant on GP records. It is primarily based on Royal Free hospital records, including histories taken by clinicians, and letters and other documents received at the Royal Free from GPs and consultants.”

BA Fiona Godlee is NOW IMPLYING that Brian Deer's BMJ article ONLY used the Royal Free casenotes, which included the childrens' referral letters from GPs but CRITICALLY, did not include the minutiae of the childrens' previous visits to their GPs for other medical reasons.
Mr Deer, who is NOT medically qualified, makes his own 'diagnosis' of pre MMR autism in child 1, taken to a GP at age 9 months. Mr Deer cites the child's 'apparent' deafness as being indicative of autism, but omits to mention the child had an ear discharge at the time. (Paediatrician Dr Ed Yazbak calls this ‘prurient Otitis media’, a common cause of deafness in children. Dr Yazbak also states that ‘apparent’ deafness, on its own, would not indicate autism in a child; there would always be other indications.)
This information can ONLY have come from the GP's records NOT the Royal Free child’s casenotes. Does Ms Godlee regard this kind of selective pseudo medical reporting as a true an accurate account in the BMJ, and yet use it as evidence of 'fraudulent record keeping' on the part of Dr Wakefield?
There's NO WAY that Dr Wakefield OR his colleagues had this information in 1998, the date of the Lancet article.
Ms Godlee CANNOT have this all ways. If she accepts that Dr Wakefield and his colleagues at the Royal Free did NOT have access to the GP's records in 1998, then she MUST accept that it is Mr Deer who is giving a 'fraudulent' account here.

FG “We draw attention to the finding of the fitness to practise panel, on which we are entitled to rely, that "the project reported in the Lancet paper was established with the purpose to investigate a postulated new syndrome and yet the Lancet paper did not describe this fact at all. Because you [Wakefield] drafted and wrote the final version of the paper, and omitted correct information about the purpose of the study or the patient population, the panel is satisfied that your conduct was irresponsible and dishonest."

BA Irresponsible and dishonest behaviour, (which Dr Wakefield continues to deny), is NOT the same as fraudulent behaviour. Fiona Godlee appears to be suggesting criminality in some form here. This is an outrageous assertion. If Ms Godlee was convinced of unlawful activity on the part of Dr Wakefield, then surely her duty should have been to inform the police in the first instance?

FG “Contrary to other suggestions contained in your emails, we made no allegation of dishonesty against Andrew Wakefield's co-authors, or indeed against anybody else.”

BA I’m sorry to say that Ms Godlee is being less than truthful when she states that no allegations of dishonesty were made against anyone else in these articles. There were numerous insinuations against a plethora of other personnel, mostly carefully worded to avoid any libel litigation. The following comments are from her editorial:-
‘ ……..how his institution, the Royal Free Hospital and Medical School in London, supported him (Wakefield)as he sought to exploit the ensuing MMR scare for financial gain.’
‘and how key players failed to investigate thoroughly in the public interest when Deer first raised his concerns.’
I draw your attention to a Brian Deer Guardian blog published 12th January 2011, shortly after the first of three BMJ articles on the theme ‘Secrets of the MMR scare’. I accept that the BMJ is not responsible for anything published by the Guardian, but this ‘blog’ exposes Brian Deer’s biased and malicious attitude to all doctors and scientists (below):-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2011/jan/12/andrew-wakefield-fraud-mmr-autism
Brian Deer ‘The medical establishment shielded Andrew Wakefield from fraud claims’
Deer employs a colourful ‘turn of phrase’. He appears to be referring to his style of journalism as ‘media muck raking’. Do the BMJ Editors concur with Deer’s apparent assessment of his BMJ’s articles’ content? If so, do they regard this as appropriate for a respected medical and scientific publication?

FG “As the GMC panel heard, it was Andrew Wakefield who wrote the Lancet paper, using data which he anonymised, with little oversight by other authors. We confirm that under the uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals all authors should be in a position to speak to data, but the evidence is that in this case they were not. We are aware of recent claims made by Andrew Wakefield that "new documents have come to light" purportedly confirming his claims in the Lancet. The material he cites was presented to the GMC panel two and a half years ago.”

BA The following Natural News report is about the documents referred to by Fiona Godlee, (above) which fully support Dr Wakefield’s version of events.
http://www.naturalnews.com/031116_Dr_Andrew_Wakefield_British_Medical_Journal.html
“Newly-revealed documents show that on December 20th, 1996, a meeting of The Inflammatory Bowel Disease Study Group based at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School featured a presentation by Professor Walker-Smith on seven of the children who would later become part of the group of patients Dr Wakefield wrote about in his 1998 The Lancet paper (which was later retracted by The Lancet).

Remember, Dr Wakefield has been accused of completely fabricating his findings about these same children in his 1998 paper, but these documents reveal that fourteen months before Dr Wakefield's paper was published, two other researchers -- Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Amar Dhillon -- independently documented the same problems in these children, including symptoms of autism.

Thus, Dr Wakefield could not have "fabricated" these findings as alleged by the British Medical Journal, which now finds itself in the position of needing to issue a retraction, or it must now expand its accusations of fraud to include Professor Walker-Smith and Dr Dhillon... essentially, the BMJ must now insist that a "conspiracy of fraud" existed among at least these three researchers, and possibly more, in order to back up its allegation that Dr Wakefield's study results were fabricated.”

FG “Andrew Wakefield was last year erased from the medical register and he has chosen (unkind remark, most court cases depend on funding not choice) not to appeal that decision. As indicated, the very many charges proven against him include dishonesty in his research. We are unaware of any peer reviewed paper replicating Andrew Wakefield's research or confirming his claims to have identified a new syndrome of regressive autism and inflammatory bowel disease associated with MMR vaccination.”
FG “With respect to gastrointestinal issues, we draw attention to an authoritative consensus statement published last year by experienced specialists in this field [3] and particularly to statement 4: "The existence of a gastrointestinal disturbance specific to persons with ASDs (eg “autistic enterocolitis”) has not been established."
With best wishes,
Fiona Godlee,
Editor in Chief, BMJ

BA Ms. Godlee reports, "We are unaware of any peer reviewed paper replicating Andrew Wakefield's research"....Yet there is:
A number of subsequent studies have replicated and extended the findings of Wakefield et al as reported in the Lancet 1998. A list of these was enclosed with my complaint and is reproduced at the end of this letter. Of course, there have also been epidemiological and other research undertakings which claim to have found the exact opposite. Many of these were paid for by pharmaceutical interests and Government health departments.* Indeed the BMA and Lancet Journals are largely funded by pharmaceutical interests including the makers of the MMR vaccine and are hardly impartial.** What IS an unassailable FACT is that autism has now reached epidemic proportions. In the UK the official figures are now 1 child in 64. In male children this is 1 in 38. This CANNOT be explained by genetics or better diagnoses but MUST be environmental. Dr Wakefield simply advocated a return to single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines, until more research was carried out. He NEVER claimed a proven link between MMR and autism.
I respectfully contend that BMJ Editors Godlee, Malcovitch and Smith have made a serious misjudgement by publishing these two articles, both in terms of the content and the suitability of ‘commissioning’ a medically unqualified journalist Brian Deer, to write a series of three articles on the theme of ‘Secrets of the MMR Scare’.
I expect my complaint to be responded to personally and in line with the BMJ’s published complaint handling procedures.
Brian Allan

* ** This was written and sent BEFORE the Thorsen indictment for fraud and Fiona Godlee's published 'correction' admitting the BMJ funding from MMR manufacturers Merck and GSK.